Sue54

We will be visiting GNP in August. We have researched the new "car pass" system and plan to get a 3 day entrance pass. The first day of our trip will be one of the Red Truck tours, so we will have car access granted as part of our tour. Our second day, we head to Banff and we thought about returning through the park heading North toward Banff when we leave our hotel on the west side of the park. If you have experience with this drive, is the volume of traffic something to consider with driving through the park? Is it normally bumper to bumper like in Yellowstone? The whole point of the car pass system is to reduce the traffic to a manageable flow (I think!). We plan to make some stops on the drive to Banff and wouldn't want to spend 8 hours driving through the park.

Any thoughts are appreciated!

tomfuller

Are you driving a rental car? Is your rental car allowed into Canada and is it insured in Canada? Is your hotel at Lake McDonald or somewhere outside the park (West Glacier or Columbia Falls? If you intend to enter Canada at the north end of US 89, why not just spend a night around St. Mary or Babb and go into Canada in the morning? The Canadian Rockies are equally beautiful to Glacier and Waterton Lakes NP. If you take a hike or two, you can easily spend 3 days without going into Canada IMO.
If by any chance you are driving your own car into Canada, call your insurance agent in the US before your trip and he/she will give you an insurance card valid in all of Canada.
Do not try to do a one way car rental from the US into Canada. Return your rental car to the place that you rented it from.
On one long rail trip with my wife, we got off the ViaRail Canadian in Jasper and rented a car and saw what we wanted to see in Jasper NP and then took the train back to Vancouver. From Vancouver we went south to Seattle and then took the Amtrak Empire Builder to Whitefish where we rented a car to see what we could of Glacier.

kevinkowalis3186

What is the best time of the year to visit. Kevin Kowalis

KarenWoo

We visited Glacier NP in September, and we thought it was a perfect time to visit. After Labor Day, you don't need the pass to drive the Going to the Sun Road. Unless that has changed since 2021. There is definitely fewer crowds, although we were never able to find parking at Logan's Pass. We did notice, however, that lodgings inside the park and restaurants just outside the park especially near St. Mary's started to close mid to late September. So that is something you would have to look into. But we loved visiting in September. Weather was perfect and temperatures were comfortable.